


In Too Deep

by SegaBarrett



Category: Jake and the Fatman
Genre: Danger, Dogs, Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7183142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>J.L. is kidnapped by a shady bunch - can Jake and Derek save him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Too Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beedekka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beedekka/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Jake and the Fatman, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: I'm still in the midst of S1, so I hope I haven't Jossed myself at any point here. I'm loving this show - it's awesome. :D Also, title is after a Genesis song.

It was late May, and even for normal Los Angeles weather, it seemed to be particularly muggy. The humidity was clinging to everything, it seemed – to houses, to signs, to the grass, and most certainly to J.L. McCabe.

He thought to himself that he should have waited another hour before walking Max. It wasn’t as if Max cared much, anyway – that lazy dog was as happy sitting on the couch and catching up on St. Elsewhere as he was walking around anywhere. 

But it was something that was necessary. J.L. knew about necessary things – his profession was full of them, most of them a lot less pleasant than this.

He shuffled down the sidewalk, musing about the fact that they seemed to be becoming an endangered species. Everyone drove in this city – and it was resulting in a gridlocked suffocation that seemed to swirl around in various forms until it undoubtedly ended up on his desk as a homicide. 

People needed to spend a lot more time just breathing life in – then maybe they would be less likely to jump over coveting thy neighbor’s wife directly into strangling thy neighbor.

But what did he know about it? He just worked there.

Then again, J.L. would be content to be breathing in a little less of this pollen. It hadn’t been this way back when he was a kid, had it? Back then he had run around to his heart’s content and didn’t have the host of aches, pains and endless allergies that came with being a District Attorney; heck, that came with being an adult.

It was a good thing he had Max around to keep him young, especially with the frequency that Jake and Derek were giving him gray hairs. 

“Hey Mister, can I pet your dog?”

J.L. looked up to see a teenage kid in a hooded sweatshirt looking at him with a mix of mockery and intrigue. He was a kid, certainly – nineteen at best, but he had facial hair that could rival a caveman, not that it looked particularly manly. It probably had something to do with the fact that the kid was wire-thin and baby-fuzz blonde. It was probably what Derek had looked like as a kid.

“Yeah, hurry up,” J.L. mumbled. He knew Max liked the attention, but given what he read about all day, he was more than a little wary to let just anybody come up and put their hands on his dog.

When the man reached over, not towards Max, but towards him, J.L. suddenly realized that something was horribly wrong. It was too late. The muggy LA sky had turned pitch black.

***

“Derek, you’re planning on reading a storybook to a bunch of kids?” As much as Jake loved Derek, there was something endlessly fun in tormenting him. Thankfully, he took it as a good sport. 

“It’s a fundraiser – public servants working together with teachers to help educate our youth.” Derek pulled at the collar of his polo shirt. “I think it’s a great way to spend tomorrow morning.”

“What are you even planning to read?”

“The Butter Battle Book. It’s destined to be a classic, Jake.”

Jake rolled his eyes and used his arm to hook his partner into a hug.

“I can’t even handle you sometimes. You’re too cute.”

Derek rolled his head, pretending to shrug off the hug.

“Where’s J.L., anyhow? Isn’t he usually bursting in here and letting his dog paw your furniture right about now?”

Jake looked up at the clock.

“Well, you’re right… But maybe he has a hot date or something. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way – it’s not like another one will come along that soon.”

***

J.L. slowly opened his eyes and found himself staring off into darkness. 

This seemed downright unnatural. He didn’t like anything about it. A moment later, when he realized that he was flat on his stomach, he liked it even less.

He tried to right himself, and discovered that his hands had been tied behind his back. He felt like a turtle that had gotten flipped over on his shell. 

“Hey!” he yelled. At least he hadn’t been gagged – that was no way to start an evening. In his head, he could hear Jake making some quip about finding him in this predicament. He would get him back, he would let Max…

Max! Where was Max? While J.L. had previously been only annoyed by his predicament, he was suddenly seized with a panic that then turned to a smoldering rage. Attacking and kidnapping him was one thing… but if they had done any harm to his dog, they were going to pay.

As if something had overheard his thoughts, he heard a voice drifting in from the other room: “What about the mutt?”

J.L. tensed up.

The voice was deep, maybe a man in middle-age, but he wasn’t exactly sure.

Another voice replied: “Well, it’s not like we’re going to kill him.”

A third: “But he’s a witness!” That voice J.L. recognized – the peach fuzz little punk kid. 

The first voice laughed.

“What is he going to do, identify us in open court? Drop him off at the SPCA. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“But boss…”

“Billy, I swear to God. I’m not going to be the head of a crime family that kills dogs! It goes against my values.”

J.L. bristled and fought against his binds. This was bad enough, but tracking down Max at the SPCA was going to be ridiculous – he didn’t even know which one they were planning to drop him at! What if someone adopted his dog right out from under him?

These men would pay for this. 

But first, he would have to get free.

***

“How much is that doggy in the window…” Derek began to sing, and Jake gave him a sideways glance.

“Seriously? This is why I can’t take you anywhere, Derek. I really can’t.”

“Can we go in and look, Jake? Please?”

“No. It’s bad enough I have J.L.’s dog running around and sitting on all my nice furniture. I am not getting a…”

Derek looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes. 

“Stop it…”

“Jake…”

Jake groaned.

“Okay, okay. But we’re only looking. I do not have a dog-friendly lifestyle. I mean the only way that J.L. manages is that he brings that damn dog everywhere, and I don’t think I would nearly be the hit on the hot scene with a poodle hanging off my shoulder or a pitbull in the back of one of my sportscars.”

“You never know.”

Jake rolled his eyes, and they walked inside the SPCA.

“Look, it’s a bunny!” Derek exclaimed gleefully, then paused. “What’s even involved in caring for a bunny?” 

“We are not getting a bunny, Derek.” Jake sighed, then turned around, pulling Derek over by the dogs. Maybe that would distract him, at least – though not necessarily in a good way. 

They walked through a door and found themselves walking through a sea of barking – it seemed as if one dog would start to bark and then the others seemed somehow pressured into joining in. Maybe it was some kind of herd mentality – Jake wouldn’t know, exactly. He considered himself the sheepdog that ran the herd.

Speaking of sheepdogs, maybe, if he were going to go that route, he would get one of them. Ladies loved them – it’d be great for getting close with female clients. Then again, where exactly would he fit it? It wasn’t as if he lived out in the country. Not that he didn’t think about it sometimes – getting up and just finding a completely different change of pace, new scenery. 

He was thrust out of his sheepdog thoughts when he found himself staring at the cage in front of him. He frantically waved Derek over.

“…Max?”

***

“I’m going to kick the crap out of you as soon as I get out of these!” J.L. exclaimed, wriggling on the floor. Again, the only real perk to this was that Jake wasn’t here to see it – sure, he would rescue him, but he’d also never let him forget it. Maybe the way the night was planning to go was for him to wriggle out of these, rough up these dog thieving kidnappers, and get home before Jake and Derek realized that he hadn’t been home. That, and then to never mention it to anyone, ever.

When he was only halfway across the floor, however, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Three sets of footsteps. Now, Peach Fuzz came into view, along with his two cohorts, Bad Beard and Weird Face. 

“He’s awake,” Weird Face – the one who had declared he wasn’t running a dog-killing operation – mused aloud. “Now, we can begin to talk.”

In all J.L.’s years of life, he had never thought he would see someone actually rub their hands together like a villain in the movie, but dagumit, that’s exactly what this man proceeded to do.

J.L. would have gotten up and walked away; if he could get to his feet, that was. He was staring up at them, and he realized they each had on near-identical black shoes. Had that been on purpose, he wondered. Was there some sort of fraternity of criminals who were known only by their footwear? He had seen stranger things in his time.

“I’ll bet you’re wondering why you’re here, McCabe,” spoke up Bad Beard. “We’re sorry we had to take you like this, but we need your help.”

“My office is always open,” J.L. grumbled. His fingers pinched; he was sure there was a mark of some sort forming, maybe even a scar.

“This ain’t that kind of favor, lawman,” Peach Fuzz interrupted. “We need you to stop prosecuting Jack Simon.”

“Friend of yours?” J.L. inquired. 

“Yeah, you could say that. Though if you wanna play it the hard way, we’ll just get rid of you and bring the same proposal to the next guy.”

Weird Face let out a low chuckle, and J.L. realized that he liked him least of the three. His face was just plain unnerving. He shouldn’t even walk around with that thing, J.L. mused. People used to have common decency.

“Yeah? I’d like to see you try. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, punk, but I’m pretty difficult to kill. I’m not exactly going to fall over because you tapped me or stuck me with a switchblade or whatever your pathetic plan is. What, did you run out of places to graffiti or something?”

Weird Face laughed again. He hated that laugh.

“That’s true. You are the Fatman. So we’re going to have to call in the big guns. Well… Not exactly guns.”

***

“This is kind of a stupid idea,” Derek spoke up. 

“It’s really the only idea I’ve got left. We talked to people all over town, and nobody’s seen him. How does someone even miss J.L.? I mean, he tends to be a bit noticeable in a few ways.”

Jake closed his hand a little further around Max’s leash, letting the dog lead the way. It was the most active he had ever seen him. Maybe there was something to the whole “man’s best friend” idea.

“I’m sure he’d know J.L.’s scent anywhere,” Jake continued a moment later, suddenly more confident. “They use dogs to find suspects, to find missing kids… and some of those people they haven’t even sniffed, you know, in person.”

“Where’s he even headed?” Derek asked, jogging to keep pace with man and dog.

“I don’t know, really. There’s nothing over this way except for some old freight train tracks…”

Jake could remember being a kid and alternating between the fear that if he stepped on a train track, the train would mow him down in a second, and wanting to hop on the back of the end of the train and get whisked away to somewhere. He’d never known where, exactly, and he’d never had the guts.

Not back then, of course. Now, he’d gladly hop on the back of one. If the job required it, that was.

“We’re going to find him,” he said now. “The three of us… Well, we’re… three pieces that fit together well. I can’t really think of a metaphor right now.”

“A tricycle,” Derek supplied.

“We are not a tricycle! I swear, sometimes I think you play the airhead just to drive me nuts.”

“And do I?”

“Well… You do. Always, but…”

Jake was cut off by the sudden sound of Max’s eager barking. The dog began to pull them forward, running with as much energy as his little legs could take him.

He had led them up to a train track.

Jake heard the train itself first – that blinding, spitting wail that had terrified him once and intrigued him later. It was close. He could hear the warning signal going off somewhere close; no doubt lights were flashing and the railroad crossing sign was coming down. But he could not see these things. Because his eyes were directed to the figure of J.L. McCabe, tied to the tracks.

“J.L.!” Jake and Derek yelled, seeming at once. 

They ran off in two directions – Jake to the ropes and Derek up along the track, trying to signal desperately for the train to stop. Maybe if they saw him far enough away… but 

Jake didn’t have time to think about that right now. He had to grapple with the Gordion knot that was right in front of him.  
Max, for his part, leaned in and nuzzled his unconscious master awake.

J.L. opened his eyes.

“What’s going on? What the hell? …Jake? Jake, what are you doing here?”

“Saving your life! Now shh…” Jake pulled one particularly troublesome piece of rope back and flew backwards as the knot blissfully unraveled.

He yanked J.L.’s hand as hard as he could. He had never had to move his friend before, but it was proving to be a difficult feat. He wondered if he should yell for Derek, but that would mean pulling him away from stopping the train as well as asking for help, and Jake wanted to do neither. 

Finally, he proceeded to push rather than pull J.L., and they both tumbled over the side, just as a high-speed train came whizzing by.

“You guys alive?” They heard Derek call.

“…I’m pretty sure, yeah,” Jake supplied.

“Get off-a me!” J.L. grumbled.

***

“It’s weird to think they actually had names,” J.L. said gruffly. “I still kept calling them… Well, it doesn’t matter what I called them. It’s over with now.” He reached in and gave Max a series of headscratches. “You must have missed me.”

The trio of bandits had been sentenced to ten years in jail.

“If only I’d gotten to prosecute them myself…” J.L. continued.

“That’d be weird. Like when people act as their own defense attorney and get up on the stand and question themselves. It always sort of freaked me out.” Jake reluctantly reached over and pet Max as well.

“You should’ve gotten Max to do it,” Derek suggested.

And they all agreed. It was going to be a good day – they had a feeling.


End file.
